Adenosine regulation of danger signaling

Abstract

Metabolic and immune related activities converge as main triggers of adenosine accumulation in extracellular space. Adenosine by engaging adenosine A2A and A2B receptors strongly suppresses innate and adaptive immune responses. Although adenosine receptors are being targeted in preclinical and clinical studies, how different danger signals are regulated by adenosine is poorly understood. Here we showed that adenosine receptor stimulation strongly inhibited inflammatory responses while sparing Type-I interferon responses downstream of different danger signals in dendritic cells and macrophages. Mechanistically, danger signals associated with MyD88-dependent inflammatory pathways such as LPS and CpG but not the danger signals associated with IRF3/Type-I interferon pathways such as pA:U and cGAMP increase the expression of adenosine A2A and A2B receptors. Expression of anti-inflammatory NR4A1 was increased after adenosine receptor stimulation in the presence of TLR ligands known to activate MyD88 pathway but not in the presence of cGAMP and pA:U. Overall these results indicate that there is a differential modulation of danger signaling by adenosine rather than overall suppression. Our results have important implications for developing combinatorial approaches to target adenosine and danger signaling pathways to cure immune-related diseases.